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Technology (Apple) Businesses Apple Technology

Motorola to Have Rapid I/O in All Future Processors 110

Posted by pudge from the what-about-mac-on-intel dept.
Anonymous Cow writes "This PDF from Motorola states that all future processors from Motorola will have rapid I/O (page 32). Further down (page 34) it claims that that Motorola has got a dualcore PPC processor in development. No launch dates are given." It also notes that they could achieve 3+ GHz, without significant increase in power consumption.
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Motorola to Have Rapid I/O in All Future Processors More

Motorola to Have Rapid I/O in All Future Processors

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  • Looks like they will have a good processor for the embedded market. maybe they can stay in the game with apple and cause some competition for IBM. We need better PPC's!

  • Buses... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Nexum ( 516661 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @12:44PM (#6116094)
    Like waiting for a bus...

    You're waiting for one for years (~3), and then two (970 & this) come along at once.

    • And both of them seem to be moving in the right direction. I've been using a 1.33GHz Athlon for almost 2 years now, and it still feels fast. I have no incentive to upgrade to a faster CPU. A quieter CPU, on the other hand, would be useful. With a thermal output of over 60w, the Athlon is hot (and hence loud). A 20W CPU at the equivalent price would be great. And if it ran OS X, that would be a bonus :)

      • Re:Buses... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by jjhlk ( 678725 )
        I agree with you, but you're probably missing something...

        I've had a 1200Mhz Athlon for 2 years, and it is fast enough to run everything I need too. But I play a fair amount of computer games, and while I can handle everything so far (with only an 8500LE) by the end of this year the next-gen first person shooters are going to be out. If I move to any faster video card my CPU is going to bottleneck my frame rate.

        So if Apple can put out a computer with a cpu at around 1.6ghz /w Radeon 9700 I think it wo
    • Like waiting for a bus... You're waiting for one for years...
      Except we Mac users have been waiting for two buses. As in double-pumped frontside buses.
    • If we'd lit up a cigarette the buses would have arrived right away.

  • Conspiracy theory #9 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by yorkrj ( 658277 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @12:45PM (#6116102) Journal
    Was the development of the 970 chip by IBM a ploy by Apple to provide Motorola with a much needed kick in the rear? Moto seems to be playing catchup with it's PowerPC line lately.

    • Re:Conspiracy theory #9 (Score:4, Interesting)

      by djward ( 251728 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @12:49PM (#6116137)
      Hey, a little competition may have been all that was needed. And I have no doubts that Apple was playing both sides for the grand benefit of the middle. It just took a while.

    • Re:Conspiracy theory #9 (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Probably not, but maybe once Motorola realized that they'd be losing Apple's business to IBM in the not-too-distant future they decided that the PC market does matter to them after all.

  • Nice Healthy Competition (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Coyote67 ( 220141 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @12:50PM (#6116148) Homepage
    This is certainly good news for the ppc crowd. Competition never hurts and imho is one of the major reasons ppcs never overtook x86s. If the new motos can perform as promised, apple could find space in their product line for them, maybe we'll see moto based ibooks/powerbooks and ibm based tower systems.

  • and this will be released when... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Luxviaest ( 625801 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @12:50PM (#6116150)
    our sun goes supernova with Moto's track record. Seriously folks, when was the last time Moto actually followed their roadmap?

  • Road map? (Score:4, Funny)

    by TheAvatar666 ( 670893 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @01:04PM (#6116260)
    Since when did Moto start following road maps? :-0
    • Since when did Moto start following road maps? :-0

      The article didn't say that they'd be following the roadmap, just that they had produced one, which is something that they've been doing for a while.

      • i agree with you. i saw the old roadmaps that said we would be running something in the 2ghz range, last year.

        all i know is that my friends who are un-initiated but would be mac folk (being musicians and artists) all ask me if my TiBook is running a G5 and when the G6 is coming out.

        lets face it, Moto doesn't give a shito about their desktop market.

  • Motorola sees the writing on the wall (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SensitiveMale ( 155605 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @01:12PM (#6116368)
    First motorola removed all macs from their offices.

    Then they basically fuck Apple and all mac users by ignoring G4 development for years.

    Apple finally gets pissed enough and goes to IBM for their processors.

    Motorola finally learns how important the G4 processor is to their bottom line after posting enormous losses year after year.

    IBM values a steady profit and their business practices show this.

    This is a smokescreen from motorola to try and keep Apple's business.

    I hope Apple tells them to fuck off.
    • Well, Apple's hands aren't clean either. They axed the clone market upon which clobbered demand (or at least the prospect of future demand) for their chips. If I was Moto I'd be pissed too.
      • i don't blame them for not wanting others to boot their OS. they put nothing for security on the OS to prevent piracy, but they put something on the machine. if your machine is too old or too new to run an OS that you do not have free legitimate rights to you will not be able to run it in most cases, alot more secure than a serial number

        it is not like we see cheap SPARC or MIPS systems out there either, gotta go to the big boys for the big bad systems, anyone can make an INTEL box.

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) * on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @01:45PM (#6116646)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Well, Apple's hands aren't clean either. They axed the clone market upon which clobbered demand (or at least the prospect of future demand) for their chips. If I was Moto I'd be pissed too.

        Yes and no. The problem with the Mac clones is that they weren't increasing the overall number of Mac sold, but were instead taking away from Apple's sales.

        • Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall (Score:4, Interesting)

          by questamor ( 653018 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @01:14AM (#6121304)
          Another problem is the dreadful quality problems with clones. I worked phone support for several thousand MacOS installs, spread across anything from the first model powermacs to the newest G4s at the times.

          When it came to hardware failures, the mac clones outnumbered the apple made macs by something like 10 to 1. Considering there were far less clones in our installation than real macs, that's a pretty heavy bias against the clone boxes. The most common things to go were power supplies, CDROMs and floppy drives.

          Quality control was just nowhere near Apple's own. There are varying thoughts on how good Apple's quality is, but there's no doubt the clones were far, far worse.
          • Another problem is the dreadful quality problems with clones. I worked phone support for several thousand MacOS installs, spread across anything from the first model powermacs to the newest G4s at the times.

            Some were outright terrible, I'll give you that... and probably the head of the pack of them were the motorola ones. The components were just awful, and even the NIC cards varied from batch to batch- ie, order 10 moto clones and half would have one NIC and the others another that would have weird probl
      • Yes, and then when Apple ceased to exist a couple years later because of the clone market, just how well off would all involved be then?
      • It's ironic that this move, which saved Apple from certain doom, has come back to bite them. Motorola has truly been just ignoring their G3 / G4 business for too long, and it shows.

        Steve knows that Moto is just fuckin' with him this time. With much lower estimated cost re: the 970 vs the G4, IBM knows it is the apple of Apple's eye.

        We may see these G4's, if they ever really DO come out, in iBooks and iMacs.

        Just like I said when I heard that Sony was making a video game console. "I'll belive it when I

    • Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall (Score:5, Interesting)

      by 2nd Post! ( 213333 ) <gundbear@pacbe l l .net> on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @01:43PM (#6116624) Homepage
      Playing 'hard to get' is in Apple's best interests; but it's also a good idea not to 'put all your eggs in one basket', and as such, Apple shouldn't spurn Motorola outright. 'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush', and right now Motorola is a known quantity, and IBM is an unknown.

      So perhaps the best course is to...

      Keep Motorola
      Bet on IBM
      Plan around both
      • Actually, IBM is a longtime Apple supplier and is the source for Apple's G3 line.

        I'm guessing that depending on the power consumption and performance characteristics, Apple's going to go with a 2 chip solution with IBM probably on the high end with their 970 and Motorola probably on the low end with their 32bit G5. This is exactly what was going on before except that the high end was previously held by Motorola.
      • I'd suggest that to Apple, both are known quantities. If they're rolling out anytime in the next three months, then they've been working instensively with IBM for the past year or more on this product. They probably know everything about IBM's production capabilities.

        We're the only ones that are in the dark.

      • Re:Motorola sees the writing on the wall (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Could you please put at least one more meaningless cliche into your post? kthxbye.

      • Re:Motorola sees the writing on tsarkon reports (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        IBM an unknown?

        HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA. Shows how much you know about this subject.

        Man, even IBM is giving Intel a headache these days. Opteron and Power 4+ are out, and Opteron is the first SOI chip. (So from a super high end 64 bit CPU with multicore and a giant cache to a cutting edge x86 32/64 hybrid, IBM is executing NOW)

        If you think IBM foundries haven't made Crapple Computer chips before, think again. They have. Where Motorola fails, IBM delivers.
    • IBM values a steady profit and their business practices show this.

      Actually, their accounts show this [google.com], but there seems to be some question as to their veracity -- they may value a steady profit just a tad too much...

    • Huh? Doesn't anybody remember when Apple told Motorola and the other clone makers to take a flying leap?

      Because of Apple's decision to kill the clone market Motorola had to take a write off of more than $100,000,000USD. No small amount.

      While I'm not a Motorola apologist, I think they have just focused on the embedded market and haven't bothered to pursue general purpose CPUs.

      m00f

  • Motorola was damn near the death of Apple (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SengirV ( 203400 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @01:30PM (#6116524)
    Yawn. Why work on the G4 now Motorola? You've gotten this far with putting zero effert into it.

    Here is the real roadmap:
    1. Apple busts their hump working with IBM to get the 970 out the door.

    2. Apple pays lipservice to Motorola until the entire line transitions to 970, 980, etc...

    3. The second the entire line is free of the anchor known as Motorola's G4, Apple blasts Motorola for their ineptitude.

    Will the total $ gained/lost by IBM/Motorola mean all that much to either company? No.

    Will IBM's commitment to Apple help Apple? YES.

    Did Motorola's stepping on their dicks for so long hurt Apple? YES

  • for the embedded market? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Gizzmonic ( 412910 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @01:48PM (#6116673) Homepage Journal
    I think this chip is actually aimed at the embedded market, to compete with some of the newer MIPS-based CPUs. At any rate, if it's just appearing on a road map, it won't be in ANY machines for at least 2 years, and God help Apple if they are still using G4s by that time.

    • Re:for the embedded market? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yes it is for the embedded market. The slide on page seven says it all. They are trying to find a balance between frequency, power, and performance. For the PC/Mac market the emphesis should be on performance followed by power and then frequency.

      The reason being that you can argue better performance for a lower frequency, as Apple has been. Battery life is also more important than frequency. But, performance is king and the "balanced architecture" approach has been proven, by Motorola, not to work in the p

  • 105 Degrees what? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Zo0ok ( 209803 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @02:07PM (#6116876) Homepage
    On page 5 I read "Top frequency is 1.3 GHz @ 105 degrees C".

    Do they mean Celcius, or do they actually mean Farenheit? Coult they possibly mean 105C?
    • I believe it really is 105 degrees C; a lot of embedded components are rated for "industrial" temperature ranges of 100C.
      • Well, if it is 105 (221 ), then I can think of one device that could use this as an embedded component: coffee makers.

        But of course, if my coffee maker has a 1.3 GHz processor in it, it better make damn fine coffee!

        • Re:105 Degrees what? (Score:2, Informative)

          by andrewski ( 113600 )
          That is probably with no cooling. A P4 with no cooling / heat sink can ruin close to FOUR HUNDRED DEGREES farenheit. That makes this chip seem cool.

          With a fan + heat sink / fan + heat pipes in laptops / etc, the surface temperature of the chip would never get even close to this hot.

    • Re:105 Degrees what? (Score:5, Funny)

      by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @03:47PM (#6117931) Journal
      It's a missprint, it's actually Kelvin. Yes, that's right, the new G4s will be so cool that they will actually suck heat right out of the room, and use it as power. That 20-30w figure is the amount of electricity it generates by this process.

      Some manufacturers are going to sell blades with a G4 and an x86 chip in them taped together, with the G4 powered by the x86's waste heat...

      • Heh, now there is a truly novel innovation. Maybe that's nVidia's plan for the next generation GeForce?? They are prepping people on expecting dual-slot graphics cards now, so that next year they can release a dual-slot card where the second card is a GPU powered by the heat from the first GPU. See, buying 3Dfx will actually pay off. :)
    • Most likely they are specifying case temperature. It's difficult to gauge local ambient accurately because of the large temperature gradients over short distances. Case temperatures are often cited because their measurements tend to be very repeatable.
    • 105 celcius is nothing. CPUs often run MUCH hotter than that at the packaging level.

      Heck, even the little ICs I design with are rated to function perfectly @ 125 celcius...

      -psy

  • Motorola still screwing Apple (Score:3, Interesting)

    by larryennis ( 662943 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @02:34PM (#6117158)
    I think Motorola went to Fantasy Land at Disney Paris before their presentation!!! They said for a long time that they are looking towards the embedded market. That should have sent a red flag to Apple. But, I understand Apple too, being a long time customer and beliving in them to come through. PCs are at 3ghz, have faster I/O, 8X AGP, etc. Apple design is great, but they need machines to perform. To be right up on the heels of the PC or even steping on their feet. Instead Apple is in the cloud of dust and once in a while sticking their head out with design and software. I think Apple should go into other directions or the Mac is doomed. Direction #1: Stay with Motorola to have them supply the chips for the iBook ( they need to make the move to the G4 and these new Moto chips can do it.) and the iMac/eMac. Then Apple should look to IBM's 970 for the Power Mac and PowerBook. To take it to another level, they should go to AMD and use their "Clawhammer" for the Xserve. They have been not only talking to IBM but to AMD as well. AMD's chip will be great for the Xserve to run a whole slew of OSs for the corporate environment giving Dell and Compaq a run for the money. And the 970 to catch up to or pass (hopfully) the PC. I owned Apples all my life, and yes I do have a PC too, but my heart is with Apple and I do not want them to go the way like Sega.
    • apples already use AMD chips, just not for the CPU. so of course theyre talking to them, its how you build a system. id only imaging what it would turn out like if they did it all telepathicly.

      but seriously, you must be a real NOOB to think that Apple would switch away from PPC, either that your one of teh ones that wants OSX on x86, ugg. if anything theyll launch a Power4 based Xserve, but even that is highly unlikely.

      • Correction!!! OSX on a AMD processor. Not Intel!! And a AMD processor Not running Windows!!! That should put a big dent into the WinTel world. But you see that is only dreaming. It just comes down to one thing, Apple can not depend on Motorola anymore. They need to look to other alternatives like IBM or a AMD. Motorola is just not interested in making computer processors any more.
    • To take it to another level, they should go to AMD and use their "Clawhammer" for the Xserve.

      Not unless Motorola and IBM both go out of business suddenly. The 970 and obviously the Moto are both PowerPCs, and the 970 is a 64 bit machine that runs existing 32 bit PPC code natively also. There is no way that Apple is going to involve another architecture unless it is their only course of action.

      Binary compatibility of software is essential for Apple. Additionally, the PowerPC is a beautiful, proven des

  • Low End Macs (Score:3, Interesting)

    by robm3660 ( 618619 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @02:37PM (#6117186)

    Given the effort IBM has gone to in order to make the 970 perfect for Apple [arstechnica.com], I'm left with little doubt that all high-end Macs will soon be powered by the 970. Motorola's last-ditch efforts to boost the G4 are simply too late to dissuade Apple from that course of action.

    But the 970 will almost certainly be more expensive than the G4 at its introduction and possibly for some time afterward. Therefore, its probable that Apple is already planning to relegate its low-end offerings (iBook, eMac) to the G4 initially. These rumblings from Motorola are probably meant to persuade Apple to keep things that way for longer than it was perhaps already planning to. And if Motorola really does ramp the G4 to 3GHz in the near future (somehow I have my doubts about that) then they might just succeed.

    In any case, I still believe that it is only a matter of time before the the Mac line is converted entirely to the 970. But what I want to know is this: will Motorola gain access to the 970 design specs because of the Apple-IBM-Motorola (AIM) PPC contracts. If so, will we see Motorola 970s in the future? I hope so; competition of this sort always benefits the consumer.

    • Re:Low End Macs (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Alan Partridge ( 516639 )
      "But the 970 will almost certainly be more expensive than the G4 at its introduction and possibly for some time afterward."

      Rumour mills are reporting that the 970 will, in fact, be 25-30% cheaper than the G4.

    • Re:Low End Macs (Score:2, Informative)

      by shawkin ( 165588 )
      Notes from assorted rumor sites claim that the 970 of about one third cheaper than the G4. Of course, rumor sites may be somewhat variable in utility.

  • Dual Core Motorola Chip (Score:5, Informative)

    by kirn_malinus ( 159763 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @02:53PM (#6117360) Homepage
    There is an article up on the register about this - http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/31026.html [theregister.co.uk]
  • for the Quad-core G4's they were promising 'real soon now' about 5 years ago.

    Really now, the G4 is destined for Cisco routers and the like; I wonder how many embedded OS's besides linux (and QNX?) support SMP. If they do manage to get it right, it's probably cooler and cheaper than multiple dies, two of embedded's favorite words.
  • I love it how the /. ad that came up was for http://www.tabletpcdeveloper.com/ [tabletpcdeveloper.com].
    • Apple is a HyperTransport Consortium member.
    • The non-release of Moto's G5 for Mac may have been due, in part to a HT/RapidIO disagreement between Apple and Moto.
    • IBM's PPC 970 supports HyperTransport.
    This makes the PPC 970 Macs almost a sure thing. And then come the PPC 980 Macs... Mmmmm.
  • They drag their asses for years and leave the G4 stuck in the doldrums, making Apple (read: Steve Jobs) look bad. Now that Apple is most likely going to take their business to a vendor who is interested in meeting the needs of their client (what a concept!), Motorola's getting interested in competing again? Please!

    It's way too late for that-- the die has been cast, and more than likely has been since the first generation of "we can't get faster CPUs, so we put in two CPUs" Power Mac G4s. Spend your development money on more uber-annoying "Hello Moto" ads, and leave the CPU business to companies who are serious about it, ya friggin' tards.

    ~Philly

  • Apple's System Configuration: Prediction (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I can't believe that everybody missed this: Apple will have the following line-up in fall of 2003:
    • Powerbooks - dual core G4
    • iBooks/eMacs - single core G4
    • Power Macs - 970
    The 970 won't be used in other systems, because it'll eat power more than Moto's PPC. The only question is what will they put in the iMacs, where their is no power constraint like on the laptops. My guess is dual core G4, but chip costs will ultimately decide it.
  • Does anyone sell low-cost motherboards and processors like the Taiwanese boards for Intel and AMD? It would be nice to be able to assemble cheap computers in ATX form, perhaps with SCSI built in, for Linux use. I would be interested for one, if the price is right.
  • Not ONE word about it? Hmmmm....
  • This could make for some great competition inspired innovation. Much like how AMD and Intel compete with each, they're always coming out with better procs to out do the other. As a consumer, we can choose to go with either AMD or Intel for our setup.

    Apple -- and Apple's customers if they did go this route -- will have the same choice as well. Machines based off the 970 and its successor or Mot's new proc. With IBM and Mot competing for the same market, they will have to keep improving to be on top.

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